We just finished our Geometry unit in Everyday math. Almost all of the students had a hard time keeping up with the vocabulary rich unit. I will add on the vocabulary for each unit coming up. Please support your child by working with them and asking them questions about what these words mean.
I have also noticed that many students are having a hard time with their number sense. For those children who are having a hard time with simple addition and subtraction problems, we are going to take a step back and really spend time on different strategies. Another gap I have noticed is that students do not have a concept of numbers over 100. If you could send them in with items like a box of toothpicks, box of buttons, bag of beans... I would love to do some hands on activities so students can see how much those numbers are. I will also start posting up different activities you can do at home to support this learning. Until then please have your child focus on working on IXL.com
Here is an article to read why having number sense is so important:
WASHINGTON -- We know a lot about how babies learn to talk, and youngsters
learn to read. Now scientists are unraveling the earliest building blocks of
math – and what children know about numbers as they begin first grade seems to
play a big role in how well they do everyday calculations later on.
The findings have specialists considering steps that parents might take to
spur math abilities, just like they do to try to raise a good reader.
This isn't only about trying to improve the nation's math scores and attract
kids to become engineers. It's far more basic.
Consider: How rapidly can you calculate a tip? Do the fractions to double a
recipe? Know how many quarters and dimes the cashier should hand back as your
change?
About 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. lacks the math competence expected of a
middle-schooler, meaning they have trouble with those ordinary tasks and aren't
qualified for many of today's jobs.
"It's not just, can you do well in school? It's how well can you do in your
life," says Dr. Kathy Mann Koepke of the National Institutes of Health, which is
funding much of this research into math cognition. "We are in the midst of math
all the time."
A new study shows trouble can start early.
University of Missouri researchers tested 180 seventh-graders. Those who
lagged behind their peers in a test of core math skills needed to function as
adults were the same kids who'd had the least number sense or fluency way back
when they started first grade.
"The gap they started with, they don't close it," says Dr. David Geary, a
cognitive psychologist who leads the study that is tracking children from
kindergarten to high school in the Columbia, Mo., school system. "They're not
catching up" to the kids who started ahead.
If first grade sounds pretty young to be predicting math ability, well, no
one expects tots to be scribbling sums. But this number sense, or what Geary
more precisely terms "number system knowledge," turns out to be a fundamental
skill that students continually build on, much more than the simple ability to
count.
What's involved? Understanding that numbers represent different quantities –
that three dots is the same as the numeral "3" or the word "three." Grasping
magnitude – that 23 is bigger than 17. Getting the concept that numbers can be
broken into parts – that 5 is the same as 2 and 3, or 4 and 1. Showing on a
number line that the difference between 10 and 12 is the same as the difference
between 20 and 22.
Factors such as IQ and attention span didn't explain why some first-graders
did better than others. Now Geary is studying if something that youngsters learn
in preschool offers an advantage.
There's other evidence that math matters early in life. Numerous studies with
young babies and a variety of animals show that a related ability – to estimate
numbers without counting – is intuitive, sort of hard-wired in the brain, says
Mann Koepke, of NIH's National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
That's the ability that lets you choose the shortest grocery check-out line at a
glance, or that guides a bird to the bush with the most berries.
Number system knowledge is more sophisticated, and the Missouri study shows
children who start elementary school without those concepts "seem to struggle
enormously," says Mann Koepke, who wasn't part of that research.
While schools tend to focus on math problems around third grade, and math
learning disabilities often are diagnosed by fifth grade, the new findings
suggest "the need to intervene is much earlier than we ever used to think," she
adds.
Exactly how to intervene still is being studied, sure to be a topic when NIH
brings experts together this spring to assess what's known about math
cognition.
But Geary sees a strong parallel with reading. Scientists have long known
that preschoolers who know the names of letters and can better distinguish what
sounds those letters make go on to read more easily. So parents today are
advised to read to their children from birth, and many youngsters' books use
rhyming to focus on sounds.
Likewise for math, "kids need to know number words" early on, he says.
NIH's Mann Koepke agrees, and offers some tips:
_Don't teach your toddler to count solely by reciting numbers. Attach numbers
to a noun – "Here are five crayons: One crayon, two crayons..." or say "I need
to buy two yogurts" as you pick them from the store shelf – so they'll absorb
the quantity concept.
_Talk about distance: How many steps to your ball? The swing is farther away;
it takes more steps.
_Describe shapes: The ellipse is round like a circle but flatter.
_As they grow, show children how math is part of daily life, as you make
change, or measure ingredients, or decide how soon to leave for a destination 10
miles away,
"We should be talking to our children about magnitude, numbers, distance,
shapes as soon as they're born," she contends. "More than likely, this is a
positive influence on their brain function."
___
EDITOR'S NOTE – Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The
Associated Press in Washington.
I have also noticed that many students are having a hard time with their number sense. For those children who are having a hard time with simple addition and subtraction problems, we are going to take a step back and really spend time on different strategies. Another gap I have noticed is that students do not have a concept of numbers over 100. If you could send them in with items like a box of toothpicks, box of buttons, bag of beans... I would love to do some hands on activities so students can see how much those numbers are. I will also start posting up different activities you can do at home to support this learning. Until then please have your child focus on working on IXL.com
Here is an article to read why having number sense is so important:
WASHINGTON -- We know a lot about how babies learn to talk, and youngsters
learn to read. Now scientists are unraveling the earliest building blocks of
math – and what children know about numbers as they begin first grade seems to
play a big role in how well they do everyday calculations later on.
The findings have specialists considering steps that parents might take to
spur math abilities, just like they do to try to raise a good reader.
This isn't only about trying to improve the nation's math scores and attract
kids to become engineers. It's far more basic.
Consider: How rapidly can you calculate a tip? Do the fractions to double a
recipe? Know how many quarters and dimes the cashier should hand back as your
change?
About 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. lacks the math competence expected of a
middle-schooler, meaning they have trouble with those ordinary tasks and aren't
qualified for many of today's jobs.
"It's not just, can you do well in school? It's how well can you do in your
life," says Dr. Kathy Mann Koepke of the National Institutes of Health, which is
funding much of this research into math cognition. "We are in the midst of math
all the time."
A new study shows trouble can start early.
University of Missouri researchers tested 180 seventh-graders. Those who
lagged behind their peers in a test of core math skills needed to function as
adults were the same kids who'd had the least number sense or fluency way back
when they started first grade.
"The gap they started with, they don't close it," says Dr. David Geary, a
cognitive psychologist who leads the study that is tracking children from
kindergarten to high school in the Columbia, Mo., school system. "They're not
catching up" to the kids who started ahead.
If first grade sounds pretty young to be predicting math ability, well, no
one expects tots to be scribbling sums. But this number sense, or what Geary
more precisely terms "number system knowledge," turns out to be a fundamental
skill that students continually build on, much more than the simple ability to
count.
What's involved? Understanding that numbers represent different quantities –
that three dots is the same as the numeral "3" or the word "three." Grasping
magnitude – that 23 is bigger than 17. Getting the concept that numbers can be
broken into parts – that 5 is the same as 2 and 3, or 4 and 1. Showing on a
number line that the difference between 10 and 12 is the same as the difference
between 20 and 22.
Factors such as IQ and attention span didn't explain why some first-graders
did better than others. Now Geary is studying if something that youngsters learn
in preschool offers an advantage.
There's other evidence that math matters early in life. Numerous studies with
young babies and a variety of animals show that a related ability – to estimate
numbers without counting – is intuitive, sort of hard-wired in the brain, says
Mann Koepke, of NIH's National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
That's the ability that lets you choose the shortest grocery check-out line at a
glance, or that guides a bird to the bush with the most berries.
Number system knowledge is more sophisticated, and the Missouri study shows
children who start elementary school without those concepts "seem to struggle
enormously," says Mann Koepke, who wasn't part of that research.
While schools tend to focus on math problems around third grade, and math
learning disabilities often are diagnosed by fifth grade, the new findings
suggest "the need to intervene is much earlier than we ever used to think," she
adds.
Exactly how to intervene still is being studied, sure to be a topic when NIH
brings experts together this spring to assess what's known about math
cognition.
But Geary sees a strong parallel with reading. Scientists have long known
that preschoolers who know the names of letters and can better distinguish what
sounds those letters make go on to read more easily. So parents today are
advised to read to their children from birth, and many youngsters' books use
rhyming to focus on sounds.
Likewise for math, "kids need to know number words" early on, he says.
NIH's Mann Koepke agrees, and offers some tips:
_Don't teach your toddler to count solely by reciting numbers. Attach numbers
to a noun – "Here are five crayons: One crayon, two crayons..." or say "I need
to buy two yogurts" as you pick them from the store shelf – so they'll absorb
the quantity concept.
_Talk about distance: How many steps to your ball? The swing is farther away;
it takes more steps.
_Describe shapes: The ellipse is round like a circle but flatter.
_As they grow, show children how math is part of daily life, as you make
change, or measure ingredients, or decide how soon to leave for a destination 10
miles away,
"We should be talking to our children about magnitude, numbers, distance,
shapes as soon as they're born," she contends. "More than likely, this is a
positive influence on their brain function."
___
EDITOR'S NOTE – Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The
Associated Press in Washington.